Lara finds that many younger-generation Hispanos among her students are acknowledging the settler-colonial stance of Hispano nationalism: “There’s a lot of crying in my classes, with students saying, ‘Here I am in this body, talking about the discrimination my family and I have experienced, but at the same time, historically my ancestry has been involved in the oppression of Indigenous people,’“ Lara says. “We have to have these conversations in a compassionate way, because it’s not so much about the statues. It’s about challenging systems of oppression and its symbols.”107
